


I Shall Write a Book, Jeeves

by airandangels



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: First Time, Jooster, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:21:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1487866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airandangels/pseuds/airandangels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bertie is of the opinion that he's read quite enough detective novels to write an excellent one himself. Jeeves' opinion is inscrutable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

‘Jeeves, I’ve decided.’

‘Sir?’ My man Jeeves looked up from something desultory he was doing with a feather-duster to the mantelpiece, while I took my ease in an armchair and partook of a restorative b. and s.

‘And this may startle, nay, even shock you.’

‘I am prepared, sir.’ He _looked_ prepared, too, for anything I might have to announce, from bankruptcy to war; Jeeves would face it with courage, fortitude and, of course, a feather-duster.

‘I shall write a book.’

I think I actually did succeed in startling him. For a moment there was a certain blankness of the map, a certain terra incognita quality, and then one eyebrow rose fractionally in the way that means Jeeves is quietly registering concern.

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘Yes, indeed.’ I flapped the novel I had just finished at him, an ill-judged and hasty purchase from a railway station bookstall on the way back from extricating Gussie Fink-Nottle from a mess he’d embroiled himself in up in Scotland. ‘Goodness knows, Jeeves, I’ve read enough of the bally things. I think I should know what’s required.’

‘And yet, sir,’ Jeeves said, with the air of a man picking his way between puddles, ‘you have partaken of many excellent meals. You have a well-developed palate and distinguish good food and drink from inferior examples with ease. But may I remind you of the difficulties you experienced when attempting to make tea?’

‘Bosh, Jeeves!’

‘As you say, sir.’

‘I do say bosh, and bosh is what I mean. If they’d taught me how to make tea, and fry eggs, and all that sort of thing at school then of course I should be able to cook a meal with the best of them, and I include you in that number, Jeeves. They didn’t; they taught me to read and write, mostly. There were some attempts at mathematics but I’m afraid they didn’t stick. No, reading and writing for Bertram it was and is. And will be. In fact, I’m glad you mentioned cookery, Jeeves, because don’t cooks use thingummies? Receipts?’

‘Recipes, perhaps, sir?’

‘That’s the bunny! I’ve seen your kitchen notebook. Lists of what to put in the pot, and how long to boil them, and so on. Well, it’s just the same for a good book. Ingredients, a country house, assorted guests, each with his or her own secrets, a body, and a detective or two. Mix well and let ‘em stew in their own juice. Eh?’

‘Ah!’ The look of concern, which had been verging upon the stuffed-froggish, cleared up like the weather just in time for a garden party. ‘You refer, sir, to the particular genre of the detective or mystery novel, in which I agree you are extremely well versed, and the formulaic nature of which has often been remarked upon.’

‘Well, yes. That. What sort of book did you think I would write?’

‘It was my uncertainty on that point that troubled me, sir. I think it quite possible that if you applied yourself to the project diligently, you could produce an entertaining detective novel.’

I found myself not quite liking the way he said it. The words ‘any fool’ had not been spoken, yet they seemed to hang in the air between us.

‘I think it’ll be a jolly sight more than entertaining, Jeeves. I believe the early notices will use words like “thrilling” and “un-put-downable”.’

‘I do hope not, sir. “Un-put-downable” is not a word.’

I still had a card up my sleeve, and I rather thought it was an ace, just what was needed to win Jeeves over. I’ve often remarked upon the Viking streak in his character, which manifests itself not in wearing a hat with horns on it and pillaging monasteries, if that’s the Vikings I mean, but in an incurable wanderlust. He wishes to travel and see the world, even parts of it that lack such necessary facilities as nightclubs and theatres. He often smuggles literature from cruise companies and travel agents into the flat and leaves it about for me to see. He’s even stooped to leaving a pamphlet for the _Queen Mary_ in the smallest room, and I _know_ he disapproves of reading in there.

‘Now Jeeves, I’m sure you know that authors require peace and quiet to do their thing. Look at Rocky Todd, burying himself in the wilds of Long Island.’

‘Do you wish to join him, sir? To form a writers’ retreat?’

‘Oh, no. The climate there doesn’t agree with me. I shall want somewhere warm and sunny. Healthy. You know I had that nasty little cough in January, Jeeves. So my request to you is to locate something suitable - perhaps a small private island, nothing extravagant - somewhere Mediterranean, I think. Everything is close to everything else there, so if I find myself craving the bright lights I can easily nip off to Cannes or Monaco or somewhere, and come back refreshed to my haven. And as for you, Jeeves! My word, think of the shrimping!’

I had played my hand well. There was a distinct gleam in his eye. His nostrils may have flared. I congratulated myself on a successful appeal to the psychology of the individual.

‘You wish me to accompany you, then, sir?’ 

It’s true that I’ve done without him while travelling before, and I give him holidays more often than some fellows think prudent for a valet, but I think he deserves them. He certainly does more than some fellows’ valets. I thought I should want him along for this sortie, though. Having Jeeves about is like having a dictionary and an encyclopaedia without the trouble of turning pages. I understand both to be essential to the work of a writer. Well, Rocky says they trammel creativity, but I can’t say that I understand much of what he writes. If I should happen to want to know how many grains of arsenic would pop a chap off, and how many would just make him jolly ill, how am I supposed to find that out? I haven’t the faintest idea. (Does arsenic come in grains? I’m not sure about that either.) But Jeeves would either know, or know exactly the chap to ask.

‘I think it best, Jeeves. I leave the travel arrangements in your capable hands.’

‘Very good, sir. Thank you, sir.’ And he returned to his dusting, and I to my b. and s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel honour bound to note that the first recorded use of 'unputdownable' is from 1947, but I find it easy to imagine that Bertie coined it earlier and just never committed it to print.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I knew it would turn into Jooster. There was really no other way. I'm jolly well not working out the plot of Bertie's book all by myself.

I refrained from comment until we were sitting amongst our worldly goods in a small, pungent, diesel-powered motorboat, and I was fairly sure that the noise of the engine would screen us from being overheard by the pilot. I’m sure Jeeves knew before I spoke that I was displeased. Our time together has rendered him a tolerably good judge of my moods. He was playing innocent, though.

‘Jeeves,’ I said.

‘Sir?’

‘A Greek island, Jeeves.’

‘Yes, sir. Precisely in accordance with your specifications.’

‘Have you looked at it on a map, Jeeves?’

‘Regrettably, sir, it does not appear on any maps that I was able to locate.’

‘It’s the middle of nowhere, Jeeves. It’s not even on the right side of Greece. It’s off to the right, and you see, all the good bits of the Med are to the left. Can it have escaped you, somehow, that it look us a devilish long time to get here? And that at one point we rode in a cart drawn by a donkey?’

‘A beast of burden ubiquitous in this part of the world, sir.’

‘Jeeves.’ I gave him a look of some asperity. ‘Have you heard of Corsica?’

‘Who has not, sir? As the birthplace of Bonaparte, it has attained lasting fame. However, the island of Corsica is not to let.’

‘I mean that’s the sort of area I was thinking of. Oh, never mind. I’ll make the best of it. I’m simply amazed at your ability to find the Mediterranean equivalent of West Neck, or worse.’

‘The shrimp in these waters, sir, are reputed to be excellent.’

I suppose I had made a rod for my own back by encouraging him to think of it as something of a working holiday, with his normal duties relaxed in order to allow him to enjoy himself. A man of infinite resource and sagacity makes an excellent servant, but is sometimes self-serving.

Did you know that Jeeves knew Greek? I didn’t. He claims that his ancient is better than his modern, but he seemed to have no trouble whatever understanding the motorboat-pilot, who talked the entire time the two of them were unloading the boat on the beach of our island. I clambered up on a rock and took a survey of the place. It really was pretty, though I’d rather have seen it in a painting or a collection of coloured slides. It had rocky ridges, and a lot of what I suppose were olive trees, and flowers that might have been anemones, and a sheltered little beach of sugar-white sand leading down to water so blue that I suspected the Greeks of putting some sort of dye in it to impress the tourists.

At the top and the middle of the island was a pretty decent sort of villa, if I’m any judge, plastered in white and with a bright blue tiled roof. Jeeves gave me chapter and verse on it while he was carrying the things up the path to it. In the spirit of holiday relaxation of roles, I carried my own suitcases. It would be rather like some of the holiday cottages I’ve stayed in from time to time, without electricity or gas, and all the water heated by the kitchen range. The water came from a good deep well at the back of the house. The motorboat-pilot, who was some sort of cousin of the owner, was at pains to make sure Jeeves understood that the bathroom had been recently refitted and was fit for a king. All the rooms had been well aired by his sisters the day before. There was a dinghy with a little outboard motor that we could use to go ashore and buy our food and what not, and if anything should go wrong in the middle of the night, there was a red lantern we were to light and hang out and someone would be along in a brace of shakes.

While Jeeves unpacked and got to grips with the kitchen range, I collapsed on my bed and remained in a state of collapse for some time. The prospect of another such journey as I’d just made in order to get home at the end of all this was already worrying me, and I resolved to make it quite clear to Jeeves that we would, somehow, get onto a liner that would take us back to England by sea and in comfort, and that I would never again see a donkey, except possibly from a safe distance at the seaside. I had airily told Jeeves that I supposed I could knock out a novel in a month. A month! Four weeks and a bit! Here! My visions of popping over to Monaco for a weekend did their own popping, like soap-bubbles before my eyes.

I woke from a restless sleep to the smell of fish frying. During my collapse, Jeeves had made the place home. All was neat and cheerful. He had arranged my new typewriter and reams of paper, unless I mean quires, on a table pushed up to a large window looking out over the bay and the sea, towards the mainland and all sorts of other little islandy bits. On one side of the table he had arranged the little pile of mysteries that I had chosen as my favourites and thought I would re-read for inspiration - _The Moonstone, The Mysterious Affair at Styles_ and so on - and on the other there was a bowl of anemones, if that’s what they were. He had set out a cigarette case, table lighter and ashtray just so. I know it’s his job, but sometimes I do feel touched by the thoroughness of his consideration.

I pulled myself together, washed my face and hands, combed my hair and went to see what Jeeves was doing to produce that excellent smell.

 

The next morning I awoke by natural means, without the intervention of alarm clock or valet. It’s a funny feeling just to drift awake like that, in a room full of quiet. I could hear the sea outside, and some gulls, and a bit of breeze rustling the trees. I had been afraid it would be like the racket in the woods around Rocky’s place at night, but I found the surge of the waves rather soothing. The window stood open and balmy air flowed in. 

In a further relaxation of roles for the holiday, Jeeves was not there to bring me my morning tea and breakfast in bed. He had planned to be up with the lark, if there are Greek larks, and be off in the dinghy for a spot of fishing before the day grew hot. When I pottered downstairs in pyjamas and slippers - it was already too warm for a dressing-gown, and I was glad Jeeves wasn’t there to be scandalised - I found he had left me a local sort of breakfast on the kitchen table, with bread and butter and honey, and that peculiar-smelling cream stuff they call yoghurt. It’s quite all right if you stir enough honey into it. There was a Thermos flask of tea keeping hot for me, rather like a picnic.

I ankled back upstairs, had a quick bath, dressed in the light suit Jeeves had laid out for me, thought better of the jacket, and sat down to write in my shirtsleeves. I’d always thought I would take naturally to typing, since a keyboard is a keyboard, but it turned out that after typing ‘THe MYstEry of hte Xxxxxxx by BErtram w wOOster’ (I thought I would finish off the title later, when I knew more of what it was about) I decided that a manuscript first draft was wiser. 

There are certain persons, many of them within my own family, who would expect me to confess at this point that I sat staring at a blank page and gnawing at my pen for hours without a blessed thought in my fat, empty, air-filled (they do go on) head. Let the record show that I filled fifteen pages, quite legibly (I only wrote on one side, I admit) before inspiration began to flag. I went and had another cup of tea, which was still quite acceptable, and went so far as to roll up my sleeves to the elbows. I decided that it was about time for a rest and to clamber onto the shoulders of giants, so I went down to the beach with a deckchair I found on the porch and _The Moonstone._

I was well along and thinking about whether to add some stolen jewels to the murder I had in mind, when I heard a more purposeful sort of watery noise than the sound of the little waves on the shore. I looked up and saw the back of Jeeves and the front of a dinghy, a couple of hundred yards off and rowing steadily towards me.

At this point I must record the most extraordinary circumstance. It made my eyes start from my head and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. 

Jeeves was wearing a straw hat.

Further, Jeeves was wearing a swimming costume.

(The straw hat wasn’t really as extraordinary as all that, but I had to build up to the swimming costume gently.)

If I had ever imagined Jeeves while in the act of fishing or shrimping, I suppose I had always assumed that he did it in his ordinary clothes. Perhaps in cooler climes he did. Those clothes seem so much a part of him. 

It was a perfectly respectable swimming costume, I hasten to add. It was dark blue and looked like wool, with straps over the shoulders that joined together at the back.

Jeeves had _shoulders,_ and a _back,_ and presumably a chest, not just a coat and sleeves, a waistcoat and a shirt. Jeeves had _skin all over._ Do you see what I mean? His arms were already a bit browned by the sun. Arms, shoulders and back were all working away strongly, pulling the boat smoothly through the water. He could have taken a Blue at Oxford, I thought, but perhaps I was rather overawed. He seemed to have a bit of a sheen to him. Could it be that Jeeves _perspired?_

While I goggled, the prow of the little boat grated against the sand in the shallows, and Jeeves shipped his oars and hopped out to pull it up onto the beach properly. I sat there with Wilkie Collins forgotten in my lap and marvelled at the fact that Jeeves had had _legs_ all these years. What legs! And not just shoes, but feet, bare feet with their toes spread in the wet sand. He didn’t seem real, but at the same time he seemed more real than he had ever been, if you see what I mean, and I hardly knew what I meant myself just then.

‘Good morning, sir,’ said Jeeves, as if he weren’t standing there looking like _that._ ‘Was everything to your satisfaction?’

‘Hrm? Yes. Oh, yes, quite. Jolly good. Thank you, Jeeves.’ I realised that I couldn’t possibly get out of my deckchair. Wilkie Collins was all that stood between me and dire humiliation. I was in a state another chap hadn’t got me into since I was at school. I’d thought I’d grown out of that sort of thing, and henceforth would click only with the fairer sex. But here I was and there he was, and there wasn’t a cricket pavilion to go behind and wrestle and then kiss lying in the heady green smell of the crushed grass, so I didn’t know what to do. ‘You, er, you’re in a swimming costume, you know.’

He glanced down at himself. ‘It seemed the practical choice. I also took the opportunity for sea bathing. It was most refreshing.’

‘It, er, it must have been. Good fishing?’

‘Exceedingly, sir.’ He turned away and bent to reach into the boat, I held Wilkie Collins very tightly, and he turned back to show me two brimming buckets, one of fish and one of great big grey shrimps. ‘If you will excuse me, I wish to prepare luncheon while these are at their freshest.’

‘Jolly good, then. Off you go. I’ll just, er, I’ll carry on reading.’

Once he was safely away up the path, I fetched a great sigh. You mustn’t think I had been blind all this time to Jeeves’ charms, particularly the chiselled jaw and the baby blues. I simply hadn’t seen him entirely as a man, I suppose. At times he seems a being apart. Do you know, I’ve no idea when Jeeves sleeps? At no hour of the day or night have I ever set eyes upon him in pyjamas. Now I wanted to set eyes on him entirely without pyjamas, and then set hands and quite possibly lips on him. This is not at all the general public idea of the soul’s awakening, but my soul was simply awakening all over the place. 

I went up to the villa when I was once again master of myself, more or less. At any rate, I could carry Wilkie Collins at my side rather than in front of my lap. I was both relieved and disappointed to find that Jeeves was fully, respectably dressed, and ready to serve up a heavenly salad with warm pink shrimps in it, followed by fish grilled in an interestingly spicy way. Those shrimps would have made you weep with their sweetness and plumpness. I felt a traitorous curiosity as to what Aunt Dahlia’s French chef Anatole could have made of them.

We ate together, at opposite ends of the large kitchen table. Ordinarily Jeeves takes his bite and sup separately, he in the kitchen and I in the dining room. I have seen him eat and drink, but I’ve never _watched_ him eat and drink the way I did now. He takes a bite very delicately, does Jeeves. I couldn’t think of a thing to say to him. I felt as if I were all eyes and elbows.

‘Were you able to make a start on your writing this morning, sir?’ he asked, halfway through the fish. 

‘Oh. Oh, yes, I was!’ I had forgotten. ‘Actually, Jeeves, I made a good start, and then I sort of came up short. I’ve got all these people together at the house, and I have to kill _somebody,_ but I can’t decide who. Each time I try to settle on one blighter, I start to feel sorry for him. He’s not such a bad chap. Somebody would miss him. I move on to the next, and he pleads his case, and I stay my hand. I’m not sure I’m ruthless enough to write a murder.’

‘Perhaps your characters are too sympathetic. Would it be possible to create one so unpleasant you would feel no remorse at killing him or her early in the piece?’

‘I suppose so. He’d want to be a really bad egg, though. It has to be a man, I’m not killing a woman.’

‘Perhaps a man of great social influence, a man to whom each of the guests is indebted in some way, and yet a man whom each of them has a reason to wish dead,’ Jeeves went on. ‘Perhaps precisely because they are so indebted.’

‘D’you mean just for money, or in other ways?’ I asked. This was beginning to sound interesting.

‘In many ways. For keeping a secret, for instance. For saving them from disgrace. But he does none of these things from generosity. He takes pleasure in the power they give him over other people. He enjoys reminding them of his control, of the fact that their security depends on his goodwill, that their downfall could come at his whim.’

‘What a thorough-going villain!’ I exclaimed. ‘How do you come up with such things, Jeeves?’

‘You, sir, are the most satisfactory gentleman I have served. There have been others far less satisfactory in character, and I have been afforded the opportunity to observe much that a gentleman worthy of the name would never have said or done.’

‘Gosh.’ I turned the idea around in my head. It bumped into a few things, but I could move them. ‘I’ll have to rearrange quite a few things I’d already written, but this is much better. I shall come to you whenever I’m stumped, Jeeves. Oh, and Jeeves?’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Can you type?’

‘Ninety words per minute, sir, on average.’

‘Would you mind awfully helping me? I can’t seem to get the hang of it. I know it will be a bore for you, with all those wonderful shrimps just beckoning from the waves.’

‘Not at all, sir. I shall be happy to help. Do you require instruction in typing, or would you like me to type your manuscript?’

‘I’d like to be able to do it myself. I’d feel more of a proper writer.’

‘The heat of the day is now at its height, and a siesta is recommended. Shall we retire to our rooms until mid-afternoon, and then begin instruction?’

‘Righto, Jeeves. Thank you.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘Jeeves?’

‘Sir?’

‘Does one siesta in one’s clothes, or are pyjamas in order?’

‘A gentleman does not ordinarily sleep in his clothes, sir.’

That was a good strong hint, delivered in a gently reproving tone, so I put on the coral pyjamas before lying down. Was Jeeves, I wondered, even now, in _his_ pyjamas? Would he, in fact, sleep? Perhaps that’s what he really does - he cat-naps while I’m out during the day. I once saw a picture in a film magazine of a special leaning board with arm-rests that actresses can use to have a quick kip on without crumpling their gowns by sitting or lying down in them. Perhaps Jeeves has one of those hidden somewhere about the flat, and leans on it to sleep, his pinstripes remaining perfect, springing to full wakefulness at the sound of a knock or a ring. It would explain a lot.

He hadn’t brought a leaning board on the boat, though, so he was probably lying down now. In pyjamas. Or perhaps - the thought occurred to me because the day really was very sultry, even with the shutters closed to block the sun while letting the breeze through - without pyjamas. Just under a sheet. I had to wriggle out of the coral pyjamas at the thought. The heat made me drowsy, though my thoughts ran on and grew more muddled. I remembered in great detail the sheen on Jeeves’ bare skin, from the sea-salt and his own salt, and felt thirsty. Fortunately, and of course, Jeeves had left a carafe and glass on the bedside table. I gulped down some water and wilted back upon the pillows.

I drowsed, and dreamed, about Jeeves whisking Wilkie Collins out of my lap and smiling in that discreetly pleased way he has. I dreamed about him feeding me plump shrimps from his fingers, and delicately biting my fingers when I fed them to him. I dreamed about him getting on top of me and administering a jolly good kissing and ravishing. We were just enjoying a post-ravishing cuddle when, on a distant hillside, a sheep gently cleared its throat of a blade of grass. 

I was awake, and wet and sweaty and sticky, and tangled in my sheets. Jeeves was standing over me, cool and crisp as a cucumber in the Arctic, informing me that he had taken the liberty of preparing a tepid bath, believing that I should want it when I awoke. I thanked him feebly and tottered off bathwards with my top sheet wrapped about me.

It’s one of those inviolable trusts between master and man. One’s man sees one with one’s clothes off. One’s man is there to assist when one dresses and undresses. One’s man has the freedom of one’s bathroom, including when one is immersed and plying the sponge.

And one’s man strips and makes one’s bed, and bundles up one’s sheets and pyjamas for the laundry, so one’s man is well aware, in general and sometimes quite specific terms, of what has gone on in those sheets and those pyjamas. We avoid any embarrassment by the simple expedient of never thinking or speaking of it. Now, however, I was thoroughly embarrassed. I skulked low in the bathwater and tried to think purer thoughts.

Then I thought of the fact that, unless he took the laundry ashore weekly in the dinghy, Jeeves would have to do it himself, and I believe the bathwater began to warm up from the heat of my blushes. I silently and sincerely prayed that he would take it ashore. 

‘Refreshed, sir?’ Jeeves asked, when I shuffled back out wrapped up in the largest towel I could find. 

‘Yes, thank you, Jeeves.’

‘I’ve laid out a fresh shirt for the afternoon, sir. When you have dressed, perhaps we may begin the typewriting lesson?’

Jeeves looked with mild soupiness on my decision to work in rolled-up shirt-sleeves once again, though he was beginning to look warm in his coat.

‘Go on, Jeeves. You’re on holiday. It seems the practical choice.’

‘If you wish, sir.’ He took off his coat and hung it neatly over the back of a chair, then removed his cufflinks, tucked them in his waistcoat pocket and turned up his sleeves with brisk, practical movements. I tried to think brisk, practical thoughts and not jolly silly ones about his strong forearms and the lovely golden colour the morning in the sun had given them. Jeeves is not built like one of those muscle-bound chaps that exhibit themseves on the music-hall stage. He’s not _bulgy._ More like a boxer, I suppose, if one could ever imagine Jeeves as a pugilist. The mind of a scholar and a poet in the body of a Jack Dempsey. I don’t have sticky dreams about Jack Dempsey, though.

‘Now, sir.’ He had brought up the piano bench from downstairs - there was an old upright piano in the parlour, though it was badly out of tune - so that we could easily sit side by side at the typewriter. ‘When you play the piano, you habitually begin with your right hand at middle C. In a similar way, when you place your hands on the typewriter keys, you allow them to rest so, on what we call the “home row.” Your fingers will return to this row when at rest, and your thumbs will operate the space bar.’

‘Good job there are no pedals, eh?’

‘Quite, sir. If you will allow me, sir.’ He took hold of my hands on the keyboard and moulded them a bit. ‘This relaxed posture will allow you to type for longer with less fatigue. The strength and flexibility you have gained from playing the piano will also be most helpful. Let us begin with a simple exercise.’

I really do think it is a testament to my iron will that I sat there, with his hip brushing mine, letting him touch my hands to correct and guide me, and only sweated through my shirt. There are those who will tell you I’m an egregious ass and a mental midget, two of them my own aunts, but I think I caught on very well. I learned to make capital letters only when I meant to. I stopped typing ‘hte’ and ‘teh’ (most of the time). I was slow, to be sure, but I was using all my fingers just the way you’re supposed to. The quick brown fox and the lazy dog were both brought to heel. 

‘I think it’s going rather well, Jeeves.’

‘It is going very well, sir. You are an apt pupil.’

‘Pity the keyboard isn’t wide enough for us to play a duet.’

‘That reminds me, sir, that I have asked our pilot to make enquiries for a piano-tuner. If one cannot be found in the vicinity, I shall attempt to put the instrument in order myself. We must not be without music.’

‘No, we must not!’ I thought of spending evenings in the lamplight playing little duets with Jeeves while the waves lapped outside, and found it a most happy thought. What need had I of nightclubs or theatres, when I had Jeeves and a piano? For a month with the guarantee of going home again, at any rate.

‘Now, sir, if you will excuse me, I would like to begin dinner preparations. I am sure you are eager to begin your second draft.’

‘Oh. Right-oh. Yes. Keen as mustard.’ My heart sank a bit as he rose to go. Still, write a book I had said I would, and write a book I really did quite want to do. Jeeves shimmered off, taking his coat with him, and I began to tap away. 

When I toddled down to dinner, which was a rather good omelette, I was feeling rather chuffed with my progress and eager to tell Jeeves all about it.

‘He’s such a _swine,_ Jeeves. His poor wife, you see, she’s a lovely girl, he wanted to marry her but she turned him down because she knew he was no good, but then her father was ruined and he said _now_ will you marry me, and she said yes because she’s got this poor old mother to provide for, and he’s an utter brute to her, knocks her about and casts it up to her that she was too proud to have him at first, and now look at her - she certainly has reason enough, but I don’t think it _is_ her that kills him, because he’s worn her down so. She just hasn’t any spirit left.’

‘And yet, sir, the worm will sometimes turn.’

‘True. I might keep her as a surprise. Nobody would suspect such a gentle creature. _Then_ there’s this chap Fishburne, whose gambling debts he paid off, but he won’t ever let him start afresh, keeps on dragging him back and making him do _his_ dirty work, so that it always looks as if Fishburne is the bounder, and everyone will believe it of him, because, you know, he used to frequent dens of vice.’

I did rather chatter on, but Jeeves seemed not to be feigning his interest. As always when a situation is explained to him, he listens attentively, his head a little on one side, then asks a question or two that gets to the heart of the matter. I won’t say I was crushed, but I felt slightly squashed to be informed that a couple of my characters’ background stories wouldn’t work, at least not quite as they were, but Jeeves does not tear down without rebuilding. He had several clever suggestions. It goes both ways, you see - Jeeves is a genius at getting people out of sticky pickles, but he has an equal gift for composing pickles to stick them into. I would have taken notes, but I knew he would remember everything if I asked him tomorrow. 

‘Jeeves, old man, I am most terribly grateful. I shall dedicate this book to you. “To Jeeves, without whom,” and so on. In fact - _in fact!’_ I was so excited that I almost knocked over my wineglass. ‘I’ve thought of something quite fresh, Jeeves! The crime will not be solved by the detectives, but by one of the detectives’ brilliant valet! I’ll model him on you, Jeeves. He’ll take everyone by surprise. He’ll be the next Poirot. Of course, the detective will be no slouch himself, they’ll work as a team. This could be quite a series, Jeeves!’

‘Perhaps, sir, it would be well to finish the book before embarking upon a series. Or indeed, the first chapter of the book.’

‘Oh, yes. If it were done when ‘tis done, ‘twere well ‘twere done quickly.’

He closed his eyes for a moment, his eyebrows drawing together, and inhaled rather sharply.

‘Ah, yes, the great poets often affect us so, don’t they, Jeeves. I think I’ll stick to plain prose for my book, though.’

‘Your strongest suit, it must be said, sir.’

We had a very quiet evening, the sort you can’t help having on a Greek island too small to show up on an Admiralty chart. We sat out on the porch, with an oil lamp between us, and I read _The Moonstone,_ and Jeeves read an improving book. I often glanced at him surreptitiously, and I thought he looked quietly happy. I also thought he had a rather lovely profile, gilded by the lamplight. Jeeves’ nose is not a classic one. It rather turns a corner. I should like to ask him what happened to it, and yet it seems a dashed cheek to ask one’s valet questions about the shape of his nose. It’s an even worse cheek to want to kiss him on it. If I had leant over just then I could have done it as neatly as you please. Perhaps just beside the nose. Or at the corner of the mouth, where it curls up very slightly when a book is improving him. They can only be very slight improvements.

‘Sir?’ He had looked up and found me gazing at him soulfully. ‘Are you well?’

‘Ducky, Jeeves.’

‘If dinner has disagreed with you at all -’ Now he looked quite worried, which had me worried about the quality of my soulful gaze. Was it so hard to distinguish from indigestion?

‘Not in the slightest. Your cooking, as usual, was superb. Tip top. But do you know, I’m rather tired. All that typing, you know, and the brainwork! Far more than I’m used to, for one day! I think I should be off up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire. Good night, Jeeves! Good night.’

I rather scurried away, and put myself to bed. I shammed sleep as hard as I could when Jeeves came up and quietly put my room to rights, folding and brushing and hanging things away. I kept imagining that after that, I would hear the rustling sounds of him undressing, and then feel the covers lift and the mattress dip as he got in beside me. And then a warm hand on my back, or my side, sliding over and around me… but of course, it was not to be. He did exactly what he always does, which is to put everything away perfectly and then soundlessly leave me to the arms of Morpheus. 

 _Dash_ Morpheus. I wanted the arms of Jeeves. I wanted them to squeeze me tightly and to press me to his chest, and I particularly wanted to feel his weight on top of me and his warm, thick thigh between mine. 

‘Now Bertram,’ I told myself, _sotto voce,_ unless I mean _sub rosa,_ ‘it does no good to keep thinking of these things. In the years he’s served you, has Jeeves given the least indication that he feels anything of the kind? He has not. He has offered the kindest friendship, despite being an old stick-in-the-mud about your choice in ties, socks, handkerchiefs and hats. And that one occasion of the bicycle in the night-time, but let bygones be bygones. And you’ve no business at all to suddenly decide that you want a lively game of tummy-sticks on the basis of one good squint at him in a bathing costume. That was base of you, Bertram. Base and sordid. If you’re an invert after all, you’ll just have to cope with it by yourself and not pester Jeeves.’

With that good resolution, I did my level best to go to sleep. I lay flat on my back with my arms firmly on top of the covers, closed my eyes and counted waves. I could hear them rolling softly in. Every seventh one should be a bit bigger and louder than the others.

I recommend counting waves wholeheartedly. Far more useful than counting sheep, though I’m not sure now that the seventh wave thing is right. I nodded off in a quite satisfactory way. The trouble is, that left me in dreamland, and in dreamland, you’ve probably noticed, one does all sorts of silly things. A jewel had been stolen at Totleigh Towers, and I thought Jeeves had done it, but I wouldn’t tell a soul, or speak to him about it, like an ass. Of course he would have had a reasonable explanation.

Then the dream changed, as is their wont, and Jeeves and I were together in bed and tummy-sticks commenced, and oh, it was glorious. 

The next day, I should be ashamed to say, I quite deliberately went down to the beach to see Jeeves row back in. I had the sense to wear dark glasses, the better to stare behind. He was just lovely. He must have had his dip just before rowing back, because he was still wet. There were drops of seawater glistening in the hair on his arms and legs.

‘Good fishing, Jeeves?’

‘Indeed, sir. An unusual find.’ He held out a large seashell with a sort of great blob of… thing in it. Like the underside of a snail’s foot. I didn’t like the look of it. ‘The European abalone, known as the ormer in British waters, Haliotis tuberculata.’

‘D’you mean it’s got bad breath and TB? I should throw it back, Jeeves. And wash your hands.’

‘The flesh is considered a highly prized delicacy, sir, and the shell remarkable for the beauty of its nacreous inner surface,’ Jeeves said reproachfully.

‘If you say so. I certainly don’t see any beauty on its outer surface.’ _Not like your outer surface,_ I very nearly said.

‘I have found several, sir, and I intend to make fritters, if you do not object.’

‘Not at all, old top. Make all the fritters you like. I promise to eat at least one.’ It was a rash promise, but he was wearing a wet bathing costume and I’d clearly disappointed him. ‘I think I’ve finished a chapter. Would you care to read it and tell me what you think?’

‘Gladly, sir.’ He lifted his buckets from the dinghy and paused. ‘Have you bathed in the sea yet, sir? I strongly recommend it. Physical exercise will balance and mitigate the unwonted mental exertion. It will also aid your appetite and digestion.’

‘I suppose there’s time before lunch.’

‘Ample time, sir. Your costume is in the third drawer of the bureau.’

I think I cut rather a dash in my Jantzen, not that there was anyone to see me as I swam about the bay. Smoke rose above the roof of the villa, coming from the kitchen at the back, and I suppose Jeeves was busy about his pots and pans there. It was getting scorchingly hot, so it can’t have been comfortable for him. I resolved that whatever this abalone thing was like, I would eat it and express pleasure.

When I felt I’d done justice to the water, I trotted back up to the villa. 

‘Jeeves?’ I called, hovering at the front door. ‘I say Jeeves, I forgot to take a towel.’

‘I shall bring one directly, sir,’ his voice came floating to me. As good as his word, he soon appeared in the shadows of the front hall, in shirtsleeves and apron, a towel in his hands. And I must remark upon a curious circumstance. A jolly rummy circumstance. I stood dripping in the doorway, and Jeeves stood in the hall, holding the towel. Instead of handing it to me right away, he looked at me. He looked at me _appreciatively._ And only _then_ gave me the towel. 

‘Thank you, Jeeves.’

‘Luncheon will be ready in a quarter of an hour, sir.’ He inclined his head briefly and walked away.

And do you know, the abalone was quite delicious? I’ve never been overly fond of snails (of which Jeeves admitted this was a large specimen) except under Anatole’s magic touch. I cleaned my plate. Jeeves showed me the shells and they were lovely, full of pearly rainbows. And the whole time, I was growing more besotted with him, if possible. 

‘I shall go ashore in the dinghy after siesta,’ Jeeves said, interrupting a reverie about his billowy regions, ‘and purchase fresh supplies of fruit and vegetables. Is there anything you require, sir?’

‘Oh no, no, nothing to speak of. I say, Jeeves, all this fish you’re feeding me should help the writing wonderfully.’

‘If you wish, sir, I can purchase other meat. Perhaps lamb?’

‘Gosh, no, I really do like the fish. Please. Feed me all the fish you can catch. I mean it, Jeeves. I don’t aspire to a brain like yours, but I’m sure it will do mine good.’

‘Very well, sir.’

I meant to write more while he was gone, but I ended up wandering about the house smoking one gasper after another. Then I did something unconscionable. Something I have never done at home. If you’d told me a month ago that I would do this, I would have scoffed and perhaps thrown a bread roll at you.

I went into Jeeves’ room.

It was, obviously, very neat and tidy. There was another vase of anemones on the bureau, and a silver picture frame holding a wedding photograph from last century - Mother and Father Jeeves, I supposed, particularly from the chiselled jaw on the groom and the eyes of the bride. He had filled a small shelf with books on science, philosophy, history, and fearfully brainy things like that. Not holiday reading, to my mind. But on the bedside table he had the latest Rosie M. Banks, with a bookmark halfway through.

I lifted the pillow.

Jeeves possessed pyjamas. They were cornflower blue and white striped. They were neatly folded, but not crisp - he had clearly worn them the night before.

I put the pillow back down, and bent, and smelt it. I didn’t know that I knew Jeeves’ smell so well, or that the concentrated version on his pillow would make my heart go pit-a-pat. However, it also made me feel very strongly that I was doing something wrong, and underhanded, and unworthy of a Wooster, and particularly unworthy of one who aspired to love a Jeeves. It was getting that bad, you see. I left his room sharpish, and although I couldn’t possibly write anything in such a state, I read furiously until he came back, and finished off _The Moonstone._

I knew perfectly well that I shouldn’t hang about Jeeves when I felt this way, and I kept doing it anyway. I sat at the kitchen table while he was cooking, and played Patience, and cheated like a beast, and chattered away nineteen to the dozen while I did it. I told him stories about Oxford, and Eton, and dashed silly things I had done there. He listened agreeably, and didn’t seem to mind.

And then, while the soup was simmering, he turned, seemed to consider for a moment, and told me a story about a very daring trick he had played when he was a page at a girls’ school, involving a mouse, a matchbox and morning prayers. I couldn’t have been more astonished if he had taken his head off and put it on the table - or more pleased if he had pulled me up by the braces and given me a sound kissing.

‘I never thought it of you, Jeeves!’

‘Let the secret remain on this island, sir,’ he said, gravely, though the corner of his mouth was curling.

‘I wish I had known you then,’ I said, like a fool.

‘I’m afraid, sir, that at the time you were yet to be born.’

‘Oh. Oh, of course. Sorry.’

‘I see no need for apologies, sir. It can take time to find the people to whom we are most happily suited. A wish that we could have been acquainted earlier, and had so much the more time to spend together, is quite common and understandable.’

‘Do you wish it, Jeeves? That we could have met each other sooner?’ I wished I hadn’t said it as soon as it had popped out. He stood considering for a painfully long moment, a real stretcher.

‘I think, sir, that I met you at just the right time,’ he said in the end. ‘I entered your service at the time when I was ready for you. While I could certainly wish that I had had as kind and amiable an employer earlier in my career, my younger, less experienced and seasoned self may not have been able to serve you as capably as I flatter myself I have.’

‘You don’t flatter yourself at all, Jeeves. You’re my paragon. A paragon. Anyone would think you were a paragon! But I’m awfully glad it’s me that gets to think so.’

I wanted him to say something more, to call me something a bit stronger than ‘amiable,’ but he only smiled slightly, said ‘Thank you, sir,’ and went back to the soup.

After dinner we sat on the porch in the lamplight again. Jeeves had his book, and I had a week-old _Times_ that he had brought back from the mainland.

‘Tomorrow we shall be able to have music,’ Jeeves told me. ‘I have engaged the services of a piano-tuner who will call in the morning. I look forward to hearing you play again, sir.’

‘Oh, jolly good.’ I squinted to read an article through a coffee stain.

‘May I say, sir, that hearing you play the piano is one of the distinct pleasures of my employment with you?’

‘You certainly may,’ I said, lowering the paper. 

‘The instrument, and your voice, express most clearly the blithe and amiable personal qualities to which I earlier adverted. I hope that I do not speak out of place, sir, but I fancy that in the present circumstances, professional formality may be somewhat relaxed.’

‘Relax away, old boy.’

‘When I hear your playing and singing,’ Jeeves said ruminatively, his eyes on the moonlit sea, ‘I feel that I am at home. To a servant, the idea of home is not quite what it is to a gentleman, who may own his own house. I have come to feel, though, that my home is with you. Where you are,’ he added quickly, and I was astonished with double barrels, both because Jeeves was saying such lovely things and because he was apparently so choked up that he wished to rephrase something he had just said.

‘Well, Jeeves, wherever I might live, it wouldn’t be home without you.’ I reached over the little table between us and patted his hand, resting on the arm of his chair. And because it was a night of astonishments, he turned his hand over, and gently held mine.

My heart did something syncopated, and my face felt like fire. I had as much chance of speaking as if I had been sucking a glue lozenge. I squeezed his hand. His palm was warm and smooth, and his long fingers wrapped securely around mine. I cleared my throat, with a Herculean effort.

‘Jeeves, do you think,’ I said rather desperately, ‘that we might forget ourselves a bit?’

‘Forget ourselves, sir?’

‘Forget what we are to each other, I mean, and just be… just be two chaps together. Who _like_ being together and… and wish for more of the same.’

‘I have hoped you would say something of the kind for a long time,’ he said quietly. And his thumb moved, to stroke my hand. ‘We seem to be in ideal place for such forgetting.’

‘You’ve - you’ve hoped? But you didn’t speak?’

He looked across at me, and I’ve never seen such a warm sort of thingness in Jeeves’ eyes before. ‘Because you were the younger, and because you were my employer, and because it is prudent to be very cautious in these matters.’ He lifted my hand, and kissed the knuckles.

‘Jeeves, everything you’re saying, and everything you’re doing, is positively jellifying me.’

‘Do you think you can stand, sir?’ 

‘Well, yes, but I may be a bit unsteady.’

‘I will gladly give you my arm.’

He led me up to my room, and I would have thought I was dreaming if everything weren’t so real and solid, with the stairs creaking under our feet and the banister under my non-Jeeves-clasping hand. He didn’t light a lamp, so the room was all moonshine and shadows. We stood face to face, and he put his palms to my cheeks, and smoothed back my hair over my ears with his fingers, and closed his eyes and kissed me. I kissed him for all I was worth, and a little bit extra. His lips weren’t as soft as a girl’s or a boy’s, and his chin wasn’t as smooth, and I found myself quite ready to leave those in the past. 

And then he began to undress me, undoing my tie, unbuttoning my shirt, kissing me, kissing me, and gently steering me towards my bed. I tried my best to reciprocate, though goodness knows I haven’t his experience at dressing and undressing other people. It was easy enough to slide his coat off, and it hit the floor with a heavy crumpling sound, and he didn’t even seem to notice, much less promptly stop kissing and caressing me and turn around to pick it up, dust it off, fold it neatly and hang it over the back of a chair, which I admit I immediately expected.

As I got under the layers I found how damp his shirt was, how hot he must be still dressed so properly in these sultry climes, and resolved to instruct him to relax decorum that way too. His hands were under my shirt, skimming over my back and my sides, and the ticklish places at the sides of my waist that made me shiver. The edge of the bed bumped the backs of my legs, quite gently, but I folded at the knees and flopped, which rather forced Jeeves to flop on top. Now he was all over me, like a hot, heavy blanket, like a bear, and I wrapped my arms and legs around him to keep him there and just kissed him _furiously._ He seemed to understand. He pushed his tongue deep into my mouth and ground his hips against mine. I _felt_ a long hard bump pushing into the top of my thigh and I’m afraid I whinnied.

He lifted up sharpish, onto his knees and elbows. ‘Did I hurt you, sir?’

‘No, no, no, the opposite. And please, you can’t call me sir now.’

‘Mr Wooster -’

‘Do you really call me Mr Wooster in your head? When you think about me?’ I asked in dismay.

‘Would “my darling boy” be acceptable?’

‘Do you call me _that_ in your head?’ Dismay did a somersault and came down as delight.

‘With variations upon the theme.’

‘Oh, _Jeeves.’_

‘And will you only ever call me Jeeves?’ I couldn’t see his face very well, but I thought there was a sad sort of smile in his voice.

‘What do you want your darling boy to call you? If you called out “my darling boy,” the answer would be “Yes, fill in blank here”. Fill in the blank, Jee - old thing.’

‘Not old thing, nor old fruit, old top, old sport, or old china. I’ve - I’ve always wished to hear you say “Reggie, dear.” Or “Dear Reggie.” The order is immaterial.’

‘It’s really and truly all right to call you Reggie?’

‘Of course, my darling.’

‘I thought that was only for your friends.’

‘If I did not count you among my friends, I would most certainly not be in the current position.’

‘Dear Reggie, Reggie, dear, please kiss me some more till I’m used to the shape of your name in my mouth.’

‘Precious’ (kiss) ‘darling’ (kiss) ‘silly’ (kiss) ‘sweet’ (kiss) ‘soft’ (kiss) ‘adorable’ (kiss) ‘exasperating’ (kiss) ‘irreplaceable’ (kiss) ‘exquisite boy.’ He was lowering himself and rubbing closer with every kiss. ‘Entirely too _dressed_ boy. Let me help you.’ 

After some awkward scrambling (I had to crawl backwards on my bottom, which is not in nature) we got into the middle of the bed, rolled on our sides and resumed stripping each other off. I pushed my shoes off heel-and-toe, which I know Jeeves would never forgive otherwise. I don’t know how he got his off; his hands seemed to be everywhere and his mouth everywhere else. At long last we were bare against each other’s skins, and breathing jolly heavily with it.

‘You’ve still got a swimming costume on.’ The sun had made his skin so much darker where his costume didn’t cover it that the rest of him stood out white, and looked more naked than could possibly be allowed. His cock was dark, though, I suppose because it would have been red by better light, sticking out and curving gently upward, and tapping teasingly against mine. I was a little longer, but he was a little thicker. Mine curves left and then right again, so that it counts as straight on average.

‘Jee- Reggie.’

‘Yes?’

‘This might be the last advisable moment to tell you I haven’t much experience of doing these things with other people.’

‘I thought not.’ He kissed me again, perhaps so that wouldn’t hurt too much. ‘Rest assured that it is far from a discouragement.’

‘You won’t mind teaching me things?’

‘I love teaching you things. What do you already know?’

‘Kissing. Wanking. Er. Tummy-sticks.’ It was a terribly short list.

‘Mutual masturbation and frottage are two of my favourites. May I?’ His hand was on my tummy, nudging downwards.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Then you may, too.’

He was so warm in my hand, and his skin slid and surged over the firm core so delightfully. And he held me just exactly right, no tighter and no looser. We kissed, and rubbed, and kissed, and rubbed, and it was the sweetest, strongest, simplest pleasure I’ve ever had. I very nearly didn’t want it to end. As his breathing grew deeper and heavier, as he began to grunt softly on the downstroke, he nudged my hand away and wrapped his around both our cocks, holding them together as he rolled on top of me and began to rock his hips. He called me his darling, darling boy, I called him my dear, dear Reggie, and we were wet and slippery with sweat and that clear runny leakage that happens when things are going very, very well. We were both grunting now, gasping, pushing and straining together as if pressing hard enough would join our cocks into one, and from the tip of my cock down to the root inside me was one long, hot squirm of joy.

We very nearly came together. I was just half a minute ahead. The sticky, slippery mess was squashed between us, mixed into one, while we shuddered and held each other tight. And I mumbled that I loved him, and he whispered that he loved me too.

I wanted us to lie like that for hours, but Jeeves got up presently and, inevitably, set things to rights around the room, his clothes and mine, while I sprawled on the bed feeling weak and deeply pleased and a little bit cold on my tummy, cock and thighs, where I was most wet.

He came back to bed with a basin of warm water and a flannel, and gently cleaned both of us, and blotted us dry with a soft towel. I very much hoped we were going to have a second engagement, but he didn’t seem to think of it, and I wasn’t sure how to ask. He pulled the covers up around us, and snuggled himself in behind me, with one arm over my waist and his hand resting fondly on my tummy.

‘Good night, most darling boy,’ he whispered, and kissed the nape of my neck.

‘Good night, Reggie-dear-Reggie,’ I whispered back. Soon Morpheus and Jeeves cradled me between them, and I slept perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you appreciate my research into the type of abalone found in the Mediterranean.


	3. Chapter 3

Jeeves woke me up at some ungodly hour. It may have been as early as seven. He was stroking my cheek with the side of his finger and gazing upon me as soppily as a valet has ever gazed. After a moment’s joyful bafflement I remembered why he would be doing that, and why we were curled up together, and why everything was probably going to be perfectly all right from now on.

‘Reggie,’ I said, pleased to get it right first time. ‘Good morning, dear thing.’

‘Good morning.’ 

‘You do sleep. I can see you’ve slept. There’s a little crumb of sleep in the corner of your eye.’

‘Oh.’ He wiped it away and looked a touch embarrassed.

‘And your hair is all rumpled. No, don’t try to smooth it out, it’s so humanising.’

‘This is not quite how I wish to be seen by you.’

‘I know you’re perfect, Jee- Reggie. You need not _look_ perfect all the time. In fact it comforts me if sometimes you don’t. In bed is a perfect place to look slightly imperfect. With a little crumb here and a little crease here, that not a soul but me will ever know was there. I want to kiss you, crumb and all.’

‘Do.’

I did. I nudged him onto his back and kissed him some more, and he wound his arms around me and sighed contentedly, and I felt that I was going to be good at this lover business.

‘Any chance I could lure you away from the shrimps today?’

‘Darling boy, there is no chance of any crustacean luring me away from _you_ today.’

‘And the fish?’

‘Not one member of the class Pisces has the least appeal by comparison. Can I keep you from your writing?’

I had to laugh, though I muffled it in the pillow and improved the opportunity to kiss his shoulder. ‘Just about.’

‘You are an idle dog,’ he said, cuddling me closer. ‘But I think you really can do it. You have such a sweet, light touch with words.’

‘Is sweetness and light quite the thing for a murder mystery?’

‘When the victim is a swine no-one could possibly miss or mourn, I think it will work nicely. I favour the fair widow and Fishburne falling in love and beginning a new life together, by the way. She manages to clear his name and in so doing begins to restore her self-respect and confidence.’

‘Whose name will the brainy valet clear, then?’

‘He and his detective gentleman can clear everyone else. Let her have this triumph. I feel she needs it.’

‘You’re kind to speak up for her, Reggie. It shows your chivalrous spirit. But in the name of chivalry, oughtn’t Fishburne to clear her of suspicion? Rescue her from the hangman’s noose?’

‘I see no reason for them not to rescue one another, sir,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Reciprocity is one of the keys to a happy marriage, I am given to understand.’

‘Well, I like feeling you shrug, but you forgot and called me sir.’

He shrugged for me again. ‘Apologies, my darling.’

‘Do it again. You lifted me right up.’

He bounced me very enjoyably, and with a certain amount of friction betwen the Jeeves and Wooster corpi, and I bounced back. This quickly got a bit silly. He seized me by the bottom and laughed roguishly, a thing I had never suspected he could do, and before I could recover from the surprise he had rolled me over and pounced to administer the sort of osculation that only comes on the last page of a very florid romantic novel. I hugged him with my arms and legs together, for emphasis.

‘You… are… wonderfully… _flexible.’_ He slid his hands down the undersides of my thighs and cupped them under the billowy regions, kneading them with his thumbs.

‘And you’re magnificently strong. The willow and the oak, or some such.’

‘No poetry, dear, no poetry. Would you like to be taught a little this morning?’

‘I’d like to be taught a lot.’

‘Little by little, love.’ He lifted himself up on his arms and looked down between us. That look of _appreciation_ crossed his map again. 

‘You _looked_ at me in my swimming costume yesterday.’

‘You _stared_ at me in mine yesterday and the day before.’

‘I found you worth a stare. Ah!’ He’d hunched down again and begun to kiss my neck, sucking lightly. ‘Ah, this is worth learning.’ I tipped back my head and luxuriated while he worked his way around the column, and his hands kept busy stroking my chest and tummy. ‘Is this the way you like it, Jeeves?’

‘Very much… but my object is also to discover how _you_ like it. Only by thorough experimentation...’ He trailed off rather, coming back to my mouth. ‘Darling boy, do you want me to make love to you again?’

‘Yes. Yes _please.’_

‘Is there anywhere you would not be amenable to being kissed?’

‘I don’t think so. I’ll sing out if I think of somewhere.’

‘Let me move down, then.’ He shuffled back on his knees and began to smooch my tummy.

‘I’m highly amenable to being kissed there.’

‘It is often’ (kiss) ‘a tender’ (kiss) ‘and responsive area.’

‘Ahh...’ He had taken hold of my cock, which was naturally up and bobbing about hopefully. I’ve never loved the feeling of someone else’s hand so much, the smoothness and warmth of his palm and the strength in his fingers. One reads about work-roughened hands, and Jeeves certainly works, but he must be doing something to mitigate the roughness. Up and down, making me sigh deeply and undulate a bit. And then he kissed the tip. ‘Oh!’

‘Yes?’

 _‘Yes.’_  I was astonished that he _would,_ but if Jeeves was willing, I was most receptive. He took the head of it in his mouth, and lightly licked it all over, as if smoothing the surface of a melting ice-cream, lest it drip down the cornet. He _sucked,_ and I moaned joyfully. He went on and on, his mouth and his hand together, strong and gentle, and I began to feel that soon I should pop like a champagne cork. ‘Reggie… Reggie, I’m, oh I’m very close, I’m very… oh, dear, it’s...’

‘Shall I bring you off?’

‘Would you?’

For answer, he only enveloped me again and picked up the pace. He was looking up at me, too, those wonderful, deep, blue eyes, with a look of such tenderness, and I think just a little bit of amusement. If his lips had not been stretched and sealed about my person, that corner would have been curling. My fingers and toes were curling, and my back was arching, and I thought I couldn’t possibly contain all this juiciness, until, of course, I couldn’t. 

He stroked my thighs and my tummy while I luxuriated and my heart gradually reduced its drum-roll to a normal sort of beat.

‘That… is… a _thing,’_ I said at length.

‘You liked it?’ he asked, hitching himself back up the bed to lie propped on his elbow, and wiping a suspicion of something from the corner of his mouth with his thumb.

‘It was...’ I waved my hands about vaguely. ‘We should do it often.’

‘I endeavour to give satisfaction.’

‘You gave it in spades. Positive shovels.’

‘The expression originates in the suit of cards, rather than the agricultural tool.’

‘Does it?’

‘Yes, with particular reference to the game of Contract Bridge.’

I rolled towards him and kissed him soundly. ‘Shall I do it for you?’

‘I hope you will, as you say, often, but just now there is something I should enjoy more.’

‘Name it.’

‘Another form of frottage, my darling, both more comfortable and more pleasant with lubrication. Excuse me.’ He sat up and made a stab at getting out of bed.

‘No, where are you going? Stay. You can’t walk around in that condition.’ He was at full mast, and I saw I was quite right about the redness, rosy and beautiful. ‘I say, Jeeves, sun-browned limbs and creamy-white tum and lovely pink prick, you look like a Neapolitan ice cream.’

‘The simile, though entertaining, is insufficient to detain me,’ he said, peeling me off and depositing me on the pillows. ‘I will return momentarily.’

He just strode out of the room with nothing at all on. Had I not already been supine you could have knocked me down with a feather. Jeeves, parading about a house without so much as a figleaf - though I’m not sure figs grow leaves large enough to protect his modesty at that point. I could hear the stairs creak as he went downstairs, then some brisk pottering about, then the creaking on an ascending scale. He returned to my side with a bottle of some greeny-gold liquid. The writing on the label was in Greek, and I’m afraid that’s just what it was to me.

‘Olive oil, my dear,’ he explained, ‘the most traditional possible solution to this problem.’

‘What problem?’

‘How to achieve a brisk friction between your inner thighs and my member without occasioning discomfort to either.’ He laid one hand on one of the said thighs and stroked it softly.

‘Oh, I think I see. And it’s traditional, is it?’

‘Highly traditional, particularly in Greece. They have a fine and long-standing tradition of this type of thing, I assure you.’ He poured a slug of oil into his palm, laid the bottle aside and rubbed his hands together, before laying them once more on my thighs for a spot of massage. 

‘Ooh… that feels rather nice.’

‘I certainly hope so.’

‘I had… I had a rub-down at a Turkish Bath once, but they didn’t rub up there.’

‘At some Turkish Baths they do, sir, but one must know where to go.’ He leaned in to kiss me, tracing his tongue around the inner rim of my lips. ‘Would you like to lie on your front, your back or your side?’

‘Which do you recommend?’

‘Let us try the side.’ He arranged us much the way we’d slept, and took a moment to rub his cock with his oily hand before resting it on my tummy again. Then, with a kind of long, crooning sigh, he pushed it in between my thighs, all warm and nudging.

‘Should I squeeze?’

‘Gently. Mmm...’ He drew back and pushed in, mumbling into the back of my neck. ‘Oh, my darling boy, you feel _heavenly.’_ He pressed a big, warm, wet kiss there, rocking his hips, and I got the idea and pushed my bottom back into his lap.  ‘Mmm!’

‘Jeeves… I’m pricking up again.’

‘Wonderful.’ His hand slipped slickly down to grip me, and he wrapped his other arm around me snugly. His chest and belly were pressed up to my back, and he felt so gloriously big and warm and solid - I know I’m overusing the word ‘warm’ dreadfully but warmth was such an overwhelmingly topping part of the experience - and I could feel his heaving breathing through my whole body as well as feel it gusting on my neck and shoulders. I can’t describe how perfectly wrapped up in him I felt, unless ‘perfectly wrapped up’ is a sufficient description. ‘My lovely… my darling...’ he was murmuring, and with his oily hand working away at my cock I was thrumming. I blessed the Greeks for coming up with something to do with olives besides sticking them in a martini. And that other hand was rubbing and groping at my chest, and I felt loved and wanted all over.

Jeeves came with the sweetest, oddest noise, a sort of joy-bleat, as if a sheep on a distant hillside were, well, having a rather delightful orgasm. It might best be transcribed as ‘Mnaaah!’ He clutched at me and shuddered all over, and it was a rather astonishing thing to feel that Jeeves, my Jeeves, _the_ Jeeves, was reduced to a state of such abandon, and with me, _for_ me.

Once he had got his breath back a bit, he invited me to do the same to him, though he wanted to lie on his back with me on top of him, the better to kiss each other and for him to hold onto my bottom while I pumped away like billy-oh. I couldn’t stop telling him how I loved him, though I couldn’t get it out very clearly, and he urged me on with every variation of ‘darling boy’ there could be. Need I say I came off in ecstasies? And melted all over him like cheese on a rarebit? And we lay there feeling heavenly for a lovely long time?

‘My own,’ he said, at length, and kissed me on the forehead, ‘may I get up?’

‘No. No, Jeeves, I think on the whole I shall stay here forever.’

‘Nature calls.’

‘Oh… all right, I suppose, for nature. But when nature is satisfied, come back directly, and let us cavort some more.’ I clambered off and contemplated my person. ‘Perhaps we had better have a bath, too. We look like salad dressing.’

‘I agree, my dear, but we must put off the pleasures of further cavorting to a later time.’ 

‘What? No. Why?’ I knelt on the bed and pawed at him weakly as he got to his feet.

‘I remind you that a piano tuner is expected. While the Greeks have an excellent ancient tradition of love between men, it is not at all in accordance with their modern mores, and I should not like us to be discovered in a compromising position.’

‘Oh.’ I sat back on my heels, deflated.

‘Besides, I wish to fish for our luncheon. With no refrigerator in our kitchen, a fresh supply must come daily from the sea. And you, delectable boy, have a novel to write,’ he said, walking away towards the bathroom, presenting a splendid view.

‘The bath, first,’ I bargained. He glanced back at me, and the corner of his mouth curled sweetly.

‘I think so, yes.’


End file.
